Angry beekeepers swarm Chicago garden show

August 21, 2013

Activists attempt to deliver petitions to a garden show on Navy Pier. Security stopped them from entering.

If you attend the garden show at Navy Pier this weekend, you might be offered a honey stick by people dressed as bees. While you are enjoying your sweet treat, they may say, “Do you like food? Because if you do, you need to be thinking about us.”

The bees are part of a group of beekeepers and activists who are angry about this year’s Independent Garden Center show. They say Bayer, one of this year’s garden show sponsors, sells pesticides that harm bees.

Rebecca Ets-Hokin flew in from the Bay Area to participate. She says she has lost half of her hives in the last five years. But it’s not only her garden and honey she’s worried about.

“Since I eat a lot of food, like a lot of people do, I have a fear that half of our crops are pollinated by bees and other native pollinators, and they are dying out at alarming rates because of pesticides,” she said.